Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday February 02, 2007 @12:41PM
from the show's-over-folks-go-on-home dept.

SoulReaverDan writes "The recent lawsuit between Cisco and Apple on the iPhone trademark has taken an interesting turn. Cisco and Apple have agreed to a temporary truce, to allow Apple time to respond to the lawsuit (and, one assumes, avoid more legal fees). The article goes on to mention Apple's claim that several companies are using the iPhone name, which dovetails nicely with a great blog entry over on ZDNet. Alan Graham lays out a search of various websites, showing that not only is Cisco not the only one using the iPhone name, they're trying to use it just a little too hard. The image of the CIT300 (note this is NOT the CIT400 that Cisco is suing Apple for at all) on Amazon has the iPhone logo, but it lacks the logo on the Linksys website or on CDW's website."

Have we collectively gotten to the point where company branding is actually more important than the item in and of itself? I know that Coca Cola spends something like a billion dollars a year just to keep the name visible...but that's a company, not a product! How do we find ourselves in a society where product name is so important?

Is this the corporate version of the minefield? As if to say, "Don't step on our toes, or we'll go off on you!" Is it necessary that the name of a product be sole ownership of a single product by a single company? Surely we all know which product we are talking about in conversation via the context of use. The corporations aren't afraid that we'll get the products confused, or that a bad review for a product of the same name will keep us from buying their product.

Or is it, more likely, that this is the school-yard bully tactic? Cisco flexing its muscles to intimidate Apple in order to establish self-esteem? Perhaps they have a staff of lawyers and figure that they might as well use them. Then again, I'm sure that Cisco's resources aren't vast enough to just flex its power at will with nothing to gain...

Or perhaps, just perhaps, that's the idea. There is no such thing as negative publicity. I'm now only familiar with the Cisco iPhone due to this litigation! Sounds like free marketing. If you can hold a press release, do it - it's free product advertisement...if you can't do that, sue someone to generate publicity for a product knowing that if it doesn't go to trial, it'll be cheaper than a marketing campaign.

I'm a software development major, not a marketing major - please tell me if there is any validity to my musings, or if I'm just cynical.

I dunno.. i'm a business analyst for a large telco that purchases millions of dollars in Cisco equipment. What does this tell me about Cisco when they are stooping so low as to photoshop an unused "trademark" into the picture as a last ditch effort to secure some lawsuit $$$?

"Cisco has owned the trademark for the name [iPhone] since 1996 - before Apple even started putting the letter "i" in front of its products - and thus has always had full rights to the name. As for why it took Cisco this long to make use of the name, the only possible explanations could be either it never reached an agreement for the sale of the trademark, or it chose to capitalize on the name now that it's the buzzword of the tech circles". [dailytech.com]

So, Cisco is using iPhone because products starting with "i" are hot, because Apple is selling the iPod. But Cisco is suing Apple because Apple is selling an iPhone.